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Featured essays on religious studies and history.

Rediscovering Fanny Alger Custer

The Time Neil Armstrong Searched for Gold Plates

Some newly discovered sources allow us to consider Fanny Alger Custer independently of the Mormon prophet Joseph Smith and even get a sense of a more complete biography. Here is a highlight from the new sources, something stunning from Fanny herself—her own voice.

It’s true: Neil Armstrong led an expedition into an Ecuadorian jungle to search for gold plates. The story begins with a Latter-day Saint mission president, an eccentric anthropologist, and an Italian Catholic missionary. It ends with Donny Osmond. And there are aliens in the middle.